MJPEG to EPS Converter

MJPEG to EPS — a Frame Embedded in PostScript

An EPS produced here is not a traced or vectorised image. It is a PostScript file with one bitmap frame embedded inside it, written so that one image pixel occupies exactly one PostScript point. That is the whole design, and understanding it answers almost every question people have about the result: why the file is large, what size it comes out when placed, and why there is no DPI control.

The EPS We Write, in Detail

How to Convert MJPEG to EPS

1. Upload Your MJPEG File: Drag the .mjpeg stream onto the page or click "+ Add Files". A raw Motion JPEG file is a run of complete JPEG frames back to back — there is no container around them, so there is no audio track and no timing information either.
2. Choose Which Frame or Frames: Open Advanced Options and use Frame Selection. Left alone it takes the first frame. To reach frames further into the stream, use Multiple Screenshots with a Capture Rate — see the FAQ on why that is the right control for a raw MJPEG.
3. Scale the Frame (Optional): Image resolution offers Keep original or Resolution Percentage. Those are the only two settings on this page — there is no preset list and no Width × Height, so a percentage is how you make the placed artwork and the file smaller.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and download the .eps. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

What Size the EPS Will Be, on Page and on Disk

Because one pixel becomes one point, the placed size of the artwork follows straight from the frame's pixel dimensions. And because the image data is written as uncompressed ASCII hex — two text characters per byte — the file size follows just as directly: about six bytes per pixel, plus a small PostScript preamble.

Those file sizes are measured, not estimated — a 720 × 480 frame came out at 2,105,880 bytes and a 1920 × 1080 frame at 12,606,812 bytes through this pipeline. Both match the six-bytes-per-pixel arithmetic, which means you can predict the size of any frame before you convert it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the EPS a vector file I can scale infinitely?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding about raster-to-EPS conversion anywhere. EPS is a PostScript file format, and PostScript can describe vectors — but it can also carry bitmaps, and that is what happens here. Your video frame goes in as pixels and stays as pixels; the PostScript around it just tells a printer or layout program where to put them. Scaling the placed image up in InDesign or Illustrator enlarges the pixels exactly as it would with a JPEG. If you genuinely need vector paths, that requires tracing, which is a different operation with different results.

Why is the EPS so much bigger than the frame it came from?

Two multiplications stacked on top of each other. First, the JPEG frame is decompressed to raw RGB, so a compressed frame of a few tens of kilobytes becomes three bytes per pixel. Then that raw data is written as ASCII hexadecimal so the file stays 7-bit clean, which doubles it again to six bytes per pixel. A 1920 × 1080 frame is therefore about 12.4 MB of hex plus the preamble, regardless of how simple or complex the picture is. Uncompressed and text-encoded is what makes an EPS portable to old print workflows; the size is the price.

How do I make the placed artwork smaller than the pixel dimensions suggest?

Two options, and they do different things. Scaling in your layout application — dragging the placed frame down to the size you want — keeps every pixel and raises the effective print resolution, which is usually what you want: a 1920 × 1080 frame placed at 6 inches wide prints at 320 dpi. Alternatively use Resolution Percentage in step 3 to genuinely reduce the pixel count before conversion, which shrinks the file proportionally. Use the percentage when the file size is the problem, and layout scaling when print quality is.

Which frame do I get, and can I pick a different one?

You get the first frame of the stream by default. Reaching a later frame needs care on this source type: a raw .mjpeg has no index and cannot be seeked, so the Specific Frame control with a non-zero time does not work here and the job will fail rather than return a different frame. Use Multiple Screenshots with a Capture Rate instead — that path walks the stream forward rather than seeking into it, and produces one EPS per captured frame, so you can pick the one you want from the set.

Why does a .mjpeg file have no duration or frame rate?

Because there is no container to record one. A raw Motion JPEG file is literally JPEG frames concatenated together, with no header describing how fast they should be played, how many there are, or how long the whole thing runs. Decoders fall back to an assumption — 25 frames per second is the usual default — which is why any seconds-based setting against a .mjpeg is nominal rather than accurate. It also means these files never carry audio; there is nowhere in the layout to put an audio track.

Does the EPS keep any colour profile or metadata?

No. The conversion strips profiles and metadata explicitly, so the file contains the pixels, the bounding box and nothing else, in plain sRGB. For most print placement that is fine because the layout application assigns a working profile anyway. If you are in a colour-managed print workflow that expects an embedded profile, assign one in Photoshop or Illustrator after placing, or convert to a target that carries profiles such as MJPEG to PNG.

Will this print well?

That depends entirely on the source frame, not on the EPS. Video frames are low-resolution by print standards — 1920 × 1080 is under 2.1 megapixels — and MJPEG compresses each frame independently with visible JPEG artefacts at typical capture settings. Placed small, say up to about 6 inches wide, an HD frame is around 320 dpi and looks fine. Placed across a page it will look like a video frame, because it is one. Nothing in the conversion adds detail.

Should I use PDF or SVG instead of EPS?

PDF if you have the choice — it is the modern successor to EPS, carries compressed image data rather than ASCII hex, and every layout and print tool accepts it. SVG only if you genuinely want vector output, which means tracing rather than embedding and is a different job entirely. EPS is the right answer when something in your chain specifically requires it: older prepress workflows, certain sign-cutting and engraving software, some academic journal submission systems, and legacy PostScript printers.

Can I get every frame of the stream as separate EPS files?

Yes, through Multiple Screenshots — set the Capture Rate to its fastest setting to capture ten frames per second, and each one becomes its own EPS. Watch the arithmetic first: at 1920 × 1080 that is about 12.6 MB per frame, so even a short clip runs to hundreds of megabytes. For anything more than a handful of frames, MJPEG to JPG produces the same pictures at a small fraction of the size, and you can convert the keepers to EPS afterwards.